Among other features, Next Generation 911 (NG911) systems will enable citizens to stream live video to Public Safety Answer Point (PSAP) operators and dispatchers (referred to collectively as “practitioners,” below) from their camera-equipped, cellular telephones or other wireless devices. The handheld nature of these devices, together with their limited optics, makes it impractical to include mechanical or digital pan, tilt, and zoom controls to adjust the camera's field of vision. The lack of such controls makes it impossible for a public safety practitioner to remotely manipulate the camera's field of vision. Instead, only the citizen has the ability to manipulate the camera's field of vision by physically moving the camera at the citizen's discretion.
This may be problematic for several reasons. For example, using the received video, a public safety practitioner located at the PSAP may attempt to interpret conditions at an incident scene being videoed, in order to make injury and/or damage assessments, determine appropriate emergency services to dispatch, and/or provide instructions to the citizen controlling the image capture device. Accordingly, the public safety practitioner logically is in the best position to determine the appropriate field of vision for the intended use of the video, even though the public safety practitioner lacks the ability to manipulate that field of vision. In addition, the handheld nature of camera-equipped, cellular telephones makes the field of vision highly unstable. Accordingly, a stressed or agitated citizen is likely to move the device in a haphazard fashion, which may significantly degrade the usefulness to the public safety practitioner of the received video. In addition, wireless bandwidth constraints may force the video streamed to the PSAP to be of relatively low resolution. The received video quality may be non-optimal for some purposes, such as providing visual evidence in the context of future litigation regarding the incident (e.g. positive identification, characterizing physical evidence that is no longer available, and so on), or remotely diagnosing an injury.
Skilled artisans will appreciate that elements in the figures are illustrated for simplicity and clarity and have not necessarily been drawn to scale. For example, the dimensions of some of the elements in the figures may be exaggerated relative to other elements to help to improve understanding of embodiments of the present invention.
The apparatus and method components have been represented where appropriate by conventional symbols in the drawings, showing only those specific details that are pertinent to understanding the embodiments of the present invention so as not to obscure the disclosure with details that will be readily apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art having the benefit of the description herein.